One prior art method of sharing photographs and other media with friends and family is by emailing them. However, media files are large, and this can become difficult, particularly when the sender wishes to share many images or video clips. Furthermore, if people wish to retain the photographs or media they receive to enjoy it later, they must download the individual files and incorporate them into a display solution, such as a digital picture frame, which can be tedious.
Another prior art method of sharing photographs and other media is to make them available via photo sharing services such as FLICKR™, INSTAGRAM™, or FACEBOOK™. However, this requires that the recipient visit the site in order to view the photos, and does not automatically provide the recipient with copies of the media for later viewing.
Another prior art method of sharing photographs or other media is a stand-alone digital picture frame. A memory card or USB memory device filled with images is inserted into the frame and the media on that memory device is displayed. People rarely take the time to update the media and a common phenomenon is to see such frames displaying pictures that are several years old. In addition, when a new memory card is created to update the frame, the previous card is removed and its contents are no longer available for display. This is particularly challenging if different people in a family wish to share images to one frame, such as multiple grown children trying to populate a picture frame for one set of grandparents. When the second child sends a new memory card with images of their family, all the photos of the first child's family are removed to make space for the new images.
Another prior art method of sharing photographs or other media is a dedicated wireless picture frame, such as the KODAK EASYSHARE™ frame. These dedicated picture frames have an email address, so that people can send the photographs directly to the frame. Some of the frames also connect to sites such as FACEBOOK™, to pull images as they are posted. However, this gives the frame owner only partial control over who can send media to their frame. Furthermore, it does not provide a high resolution copy of the media to the user, to enable the user to print or otherwise utilize the media.